Just past 10 p.m. in Cairo, around 1,500 protesters gathered outside the walls of the heavily fortified U.S. embassy in Cairo, lustily shouting anti-American slogans and promising, as one chant went, to “bring America to the ground.” The sheer rage on display was somewhat curious, since half the protesters seemed to be busy explaining to the other half just what they were all so upset about. “So this was a film on that Youtube, right,” one older protester asked a younger one. “What’s in it?”

The younger man replied, “I saw it and I can’t even repeat to you what’s in it. It’s so horrible.”

The term “storming” — deployed in initial breathless media reports — is probably a little strong for what took place in Cairo. But in Benghazi, Libya‘s second city, Salafist extremists did indeed raid the U.S. consulate, attacking with heavy weaponry, including RPGs, and killing at least one American staffer and wounding others. According to the BBC, the building burned to the ground. The U.S. has issued a strong condemnation of the incident.

In Cairo, protesters scaled the wall surrounding the citadel-like embassy that sits just off of Tahrir Square in Cairo’s posh Garden City district. They made no move to enter or damage embassy buildings, but they did remove the American flag from a pole that stood just inside the embassy walls and replaced it with a black flag bearing the slogan “there is no God but God and Muhammad is his messenger.” That’s often described as the flag of Al Qaeda, but is really more of an all-purpose banner for militant Islamists of all stripes.

The spark that provoked this sudden spasm of rage appears to be a virtually unknown anti-Islamic video allegedly promoted by notorious Muslim-baiting American preacher Terry Jones. According to the Wall Street Journal and the Associated Press, the film was produced by a 52-year-old Israeli-American Islamophobe in Southern California named Sam Bacile. The Atlantic published a useful explainer on the film in question, along with several clips. One trailer shows a bearded, frenzied Muslim mob attacking an upstanding Christian doctor and his family. The film also depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a dimwitted and lecherous “bastard” and includes a borderline pornographic depiction of Muhammad’s courtship with his first wife Khadija. It is, to put it bluntly, deeply nasty and hopelessly amateur—resembling the class project of a particularly bigoted set of Sunday school students.

Nevertheless, this video has gradually built momentum in Egypt, with an array of televised sheiks decrying it and vastly overstating its reach and importance. On this clip (in Arabic) an unidentified Muslim clergyman recounts the gory details of the video and alleges that the full film is set to be “broadcast on September 11.” The sheik goes on to rail against prominent Egyptian Christian activists abroad, implying that they were involved in the film’s production. “Since 2010, [Muslims] have been denigrated and attacked and nobody speaks up,” he concludes.

Of course, with the chaos that followed the 2005 publishing of crass, supposedly satirical cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad in a right-wing Danish newspaper, the world has seen such hostile Muslim reactions before. Islamic doctrine, even among moderate and mainstream Muslims, absolutely forbids any visual depiction of Prophet Muhammad—even respectful ones. That opposition to idolatry is one of the historical reasons Muslim artists excelled in less directly representational art forms like calligraphy or the elaborately patterned designs that adorn mosques and old palaces alike.

But the protesters also seemed genuinely unaware just how small a fringe pulpit extremists like Jones control; some seemed to be under the impression that the video was being widely broadcast on multiple American television channels —when in truth most Americans probably never heard of this video until the embassy was attacked. This was essentially a case of an American group of fringe Christian fundamentalists successfully provoking and enraging a similar group of fringe Muslim fundamentalists. The U.S. embassy in Cairo issued a statement condemning attacks on all religions; on Twitter, it said the attacks would not dissuade it “from defending freedom of speech AND criticizing bigotry.”

As of 11 p.m. in Cairo, a tense but stable standoff was in place outside the embassy. An extremely angry, mostly Islamist crowd of protesters remained gathered outside the walls. The flagpole in question was bare, but half a dozen protesters remained perched on top of the walls waving Islamic flags. A hopelessly insufficient contingent of Egyptian riot police were deployed in front of the wall—which was now covered in bilingual graffiti decrying the U.S. and citing Koranic verse. The riot police were making no move to disperse the protesters and the protesters seemed to be making no moves to re-enter the embassy grounds.

Exactly how a group of unarmed radicals even managed to make it a few feet onto the ground of the heavily guarded embassy remains a mystery. It’s safe to assume that the contingent of marines who guard the embassy around the clock made a decision that shooting Egyptian civilians on Sept. 11 was inadvisable. But the normally robust Egyptian security forces seemed to take an unusually soft approach.

The long-term ripples from Tuesday’s incident should be significant. For starters, the implication that Egyptian Coptic Christians in the U.S. were involved, like Jones, in promoting the video can only damage tenuous relations with Egypt’s already nervous 10% Coptic minority.

It’s unlikely that this will provoke any sort of serious crisis between Washington and President Mohamed Morsy’s young administration. But the image of Egyptians tearing down the American flag instantly damns Morsy’s efforts to project an atmosphere of stability and post-revolution order. In a moment of depressing irony, the news of the embassy incident broke during the closing press conference of a U.S.-sponsored trade delegation in Egypt—with American CEOs hailing Egypt as a prime spot for foreign investment.

Ashraf Khalil is a Cairo-based journalist and author of Liberation Square: Inside the Egyptian Revolution and the Rebirth of a Nation.

“there is no God but God and Muhammad is his messenger.” That’s often described as the flag of Al Qaeda, but is really more of an all-purpose banner for militant Islamists of all stripes. how dare you that is perhaps the most sacred verse in the whole of islam!

blame the liberal american media----liberal american media scape goating some obscure home made conservative youtube nothing of a video....while defending the batman movie that caused a massacre in colorado.

My problem with this man is not because I don't believe he had a right to make any movie he wanted. It has nothing to do with being liberal, I am mostly liberal but am voting for Romney because I believe he would make a much better President. My problem with him is that he is a liar, he lied to his staff, he lied to the world about being Israeli when he is an Arab Christian, he has been in prison for fraud and I would like the world to ask him about his lies at his home in Ceritos near Frontier Park on the 12600 block of Park Street. I also hope the police and FBI are able to prevent fanatics from harming him or his family, but I think this may be a good time for him to come clean.

It is a fringe group of Americans yes, but fundamental Islam is about as fringe as the catholic church. Feel free to continue to ignore the massive gulf between what the west values and what the middle east values though, keep pretending the Arab spring was about democracy.

Anyone else notice that it's all Young men. No women, not really any middle aged. I assume all jobless, and unmarried or no prospects. That's not an excuse just an observation.

Can we just stop sending over any money pull everything out; stop buying oil from them, and make that part of the world irrelevant? Seems like damned if you do damned if you don't. I think being criticized for the dont is a way better option in the long run. Let them solve their own problems.

What nobody can deny is that thughs have taken control and it is a free for all, in the name of religion. It is so easy to 'rent a mob' and throw into the cocktail,Islam , the results are there for everyone to see. It is impossible to stop the rapid disintegration of these societies/nations into utter chaos because each Islamic group will try to prove that it is more Islamic than the other and innocents, Muslims and non-muslims will be the victims. In the wake of virtual anarchy, no Government, not even the rich Saudis will be able to control events. This is only the beginning. The world will see how bad things could become, when Iran and Saudi Arabia compete for their brands of Islam. Syria will be followed by other nations where this proxy war will be played out. The genie is out of the bottle and worse is yet to come!

I'm curious why we didn't hear this kind of denunciation of the crass and disgusting art project of Andres Serrano back in the 1980's, "Piss Christ". When people objected then to the gross offensiveness of displaying a Crucifix within a jar of urine, their criticisms were dismissed because this was "art". (Mind you, none of Serrano' critics killed anybody over it, either.)

Where is your denunciation of crass and offensive depictions of Christianity?

There is no comparison between criticizing a religion and butchering innocent people who helped free your country from a murderous dictator. The apologists are out in full force this morning and this article is disgusting.

The anti-Islam movie maker and the Koran-burning pastor were not simply criticizing, but spewing hatred. The Bible says that hate in the heart is the same as commiting murder. The movie-maker and the pastor have blood on their hands. Romney, instead of criticizing the movie and its distributor, chooses to criticize Obama. Romney keeps revealing his lack of core values and bankrupt character.

Dan- it is not the role of an American politician to intimidate or even criticize free speech, even free speech that is hateful or in bad taste, or not in keeping with the Bible.

When American diplomats are murdered or kidnapped,in their embassies and consulates , and the US flag is being destroyed, the President should not be apologizing for America's First Amendment. America should be proud of the 1st Amendment.

The last great apologist for Islamic terror was Jimmy Carter. If he had taken action instead of apology the terror regime of Iran would not be threatening the US and the world with nuclear weapons.

Now President Obama is reaching out again to murderers and any blood will be on his head.

There was a mini-series that ran at great length in the Arab world accusing Jews of the blood libel. Nobody got killed. I know you want to arrest congress for treason but we do have freedom of speech in this country.

"The Bible says that hate in the heart is the same as commiting murder. The movie-maker and the pastor have blood on their hands."

You can't be serious! Just because something like that is written in the bible does not make them guilty at all! They are free to criticize other religions, even if they are disrespectful and even if they are wrong. It is just a movie. They are in their right. Even if they were provocative, they are NOT murders. They were NOT the ones who murdered the innocent U.S. ambassador et al. Those who actually killed and reacted violently are the ones who have blood in their hands, and who, ironically, violently protested for religious motives (precisely the kind the movie was criticizing!), killing innocent men in the process.

Which is how an immature person operates; everything is always someone else's fault and they are always right, and they throw a tantrum when they lose, and no one has lost so much like the Muslims do. They almost never win wars (since 1923), they are consistently poorer than Christians in almost all cases(exception: tiny gulf states), their terrorist activities almost always backfire on them, they cannot stop outsiders from occupying and invading them, they can't stop airstrikes against their lands, very few people see any reason to convert to Islam, while millions convert to Christianity annually, Christian countries outperform Muslims ones in almost every field of human endeavor, most large construction projects in Muslims countries need outside architects, capital, materials, workers, and engineers for them to be built, most scientific achievements are in Christian lands, and Muslims countries were not only about 85% under Christian rule a bit less than a century ago, but Christian countries have been on the offensive in almost every field, even in Africa (look at South Sudan or the offensives into Somalia), and most of the time, we win, and they lose. They couldn't even beat Israel, despite superiority in size and numbers. Outside of a few major terrorist attacks, they have been unable to hurt us at all, but we can destroy them.

There is no comparison between criticizing Islam, as Pastor Jones did, and murdering people who didn't even have anything to do with said criticism. That the comparison was made shows (once again) how morally bankrupt Time magazine and the rest of the mainstream media are.

Besides, Muslims insult Christians and Jews every time they pray, calling the former "those who have gone astray" and the latter "those who have incurred Allah's wrath".

For every so-called American that said and supported the US Marines pissing on dead bodies and the so-called accidental burning of the Koran and other Religious hate that spewed from videos that all you have supported................... THIS IS THE RESULT !

I just watched the movie in question. Production values aside it seems that the Israeli realtor behind this pure example of blasphemy and disrespect for human religious belief, has ripped off his 5 Zionist donors to the tune of 5 million dollars and for that alone he should be indicted for fraud !

In this country and in this Century, we should not only respect freedom of speech and religion but also respect peoples choices in their belief values and not disrespect those beliefs.

If one wants to go down the road of picking apart, religious stories and try to expose them as fraud, no world religion would survive scrutiny. So let those dogs stay at bay.

I offer my deepest condolences to all those who have lost and all those that will lose their lives over this blasphemy.

Arabs and Muslims have daily access to TV and movie productions that make this movie look like the softest of Disney productions.

80 million Egyptians spent Ramadan watching a month-long series that depicted blood libels against the Jews - yet, not a single person was harmed by such ugly and false imagry.

You get a straight to video fringe movie, and Muslims go out and riot in two countries murdering at least five people. Indeed, Egyptians and Libyans gave substantial proof to the claims in the movie about Muslims rioting. The only thing that's blasphamous is the actions of the Arabs who committed such violence.

I read news of terrorist activities, bomb blasts, hatred and blasphemy almost daily. People of same religion bombing each other just because they are confused what some man said hundreds of years ago. People are beheaded for listening to music and dancing. Girls are killed because they went to school. Humans are tortured to death just because they do not believe in some outdated stream of thought called religion and trying to change, to evolve.

My 4th grade nephew can provide you with historical facts about ALL religions to show that, unfortunately, all their adherents have committed savagery. Singling any one religion out puts you on a very slippery slope, Anil. Maybe the problem is with human beings everywhere.

Nohnoh, If you read carefully i said that all religions are an outdated stream of thought. No religion can tell us the truth. Most religious nations are among most corrupt nations on this earth. And i am not talking about past because i can not live in past or in the future. I am talking about present and in present only one religion is creating issues.

So you bunderstanis are jumping in joy of getting a chance to malign and defame a religion for your own ulteriar motives.Shame of you using a tragedy to exploit peoples fears.You have not a single word to say about the pople who made such a degrading rubbish film at all but jumped on criticising Islam.I do not know why you are so damn shameless but still I will ask you to surch your heart learn the truth about Islam before jumping to cticise it.Free speech doesn't allow to play with peoples emotions and believes at all,and people like you who play with peoples emotions must be condenmed by the open minded peoples all the times.

I know YOU people. Why you inter fair in others matter? When Muslims raise their voice, YOU people say stupidity, violence and ignorance. When you kill thousands of people it is pride and a mark of honor. Why you say us not civilized, You are not CIVILIZED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

raise their voice!!! the person who made the video raised his voice and in return 5 people are killed who did not make that video!!! Being civilized means to be open and discuss what is wrong for humanity, not to kill. How long we will allow these politicians and religious leaders to rule us?? We are common people and we do not believe in killings.